Night of the Lepus (1972)

          Viewed with the right attitude, the kitschy creature feature Night of the Lepus is fabulous. The right attitude, however, is a combination of irony and masochism, because by any rational appraisal, Night of the Lepus is one of the worst movies of the ’70s. Therein lies its appeal, because if you’re the sort of viewer who enjoys watching hapless actors and filmmakers trying to play a ludicrous idea absolutely straight, then you will experience transcendent joy during Night of the Lepus, a horror picture about giant bunny rabbits laying siege to a town in the American Southwest. As if the idea weren’t sufficiently preposterous on its own merits, the homicidal hares are simply normal-sized bunnies photographed on miniature sets. For good measure, the picture occasionally cuts to tricked-out shots of rabbits with liquid on their lips, ostensibly to create the illusion that the critters are either foaming at the mouth or reveling in a recent bloody kill. Ridiculous? Of course. Ridiculously awesome? You betcha.

          Stolid leading man Stuart Whitman and Psycho veteran Janet Leigh play scientists called in to help when frenzied (but initially normal-sized) rabbits overrun a private ranch. The scientists accidentally introduce a toxin that causes the rabbits to increase in size, so before long everybody is facing off with hares as large as bears. DeForest Kelley, better known as Dr. “Bones” McCoy on the original Star Trek series, appears somewhat ineffectually as Whitman’s boss, and his presence is another indication of the picture’s sky-high camp factor.

          It’s impossible to take a single frame of Night of the Lepus seriously, and most of the picture is so over-the-top absurd that it’s unintentionally entertaining. The slo-mo shots of bunnies stampeding through underground mines are as goofy as the scenes of actors pretending to be savaged by giant hares, and it’s all topped off nicely with a showdown outside a drive-in theater. “Lepus,” in case you’re wondering, is a scientific name for rabbits—apparently the title Night of the Bunnies was rejected. No matter what this cinematic disaster is called, though, the flick exemplifies so-bad-it’s-good filmmaking of the most sublime sort.

Night of the Lepus: LAME

Wanda Nevada (1979)

Peter Fonda made some truly inexplicable choices in the years after Easy Rider, and one of the most inexplicable was signing on as director and star of this lifeless Brooke Shields vehicle. Fonda plays a modern-day swindler roaming through the Southwest until he wins 13-year-old Shields in a poker game and gets embroiled in a silly quest for a vein of gold that an old drunk claims exists in the Grand Canyon. It’s hard to discern the intended audience for this movie, because while the plot is nominally a kiddie adventure in which the characters trot about on mules while encountering eccentric characters and evading a pair of incompetent crooks, several scenes depict adult men lusting after Shields. Even the basic relationship at the center of the story seethes with implied pedophilia, because it’s never clear if Fonda is Shields’ surrogate father or her would-be lover. Fonda’s performance is even more lackadaisical than usual, which is saying a lot, and Shields seems more suited to a sitcom episode than a feature film, given her canned showbiz-kid acting and jarring painted-lady makeup. (As Fonda says at one point, “I thought you were a good kid under all that hot sauce.”) The only thing that might have saved this picture is the depiction of colorful people who live and work in and around the Grand Canyon, but these minor characters are all contrived and uninteresting, despite being played by energetic actors. B-movie stalwart Severn Darden plays an incongruently pale bird watcher in a pith helmet and jungle khakis, giving a few moments of amusement with florid dialogue and outright perversion (he tries to buy and then seduce Shields); Fiona Lewis appears rather pointlessly as a photographer who gives Shields friendly encouragement; and an unrecognizable Henry Fonda shows up for a brief cameo as a sun-baked prospector. He’s got the right idea by getting the hell out of his son’s misbegotten movie as quickly as possible. (Available as part of the MGM Limited Collection on Amazon.com)

Wanda Nevada: LAME

Cuba (1979)

          It’s hard to decide if Cuba is a great idea executed poorly, or simply a case of terrific execution masking the absence of any central idea whatsoever. In either case, the Richard Lester-directed romantic/political thriller is frustrating, because despite incredible production values and a strong cast, the film is rudderless. When Cuba begins, it seems as if the main story will involve British mercenary Robert Dapes (Sean Connery) getting drawn into the drama of 1959 Cuba, just before rebel forces led by Fidel Castro staged a successful coup. Dapes was hired by the endangered Batista government to train soldiers for their battles against the rebels, and Dapes quickly realizes he’s on the wrong side of history. His situation gets even more complicated when he encounters Alexandra (Brooke Adams), a young woman with whom he once had an intense love affair, and who is now the wife of a playboy Cuban aristocrat (Chris Sarandon).

          The lovers-in-wartime premise is vaguely reminiscent of Casablanca, but unlike that classic film, Cuba can’t decide whether it’s an examination of geopolitics or simply a torrid love triangle. As a result, the movie bounces from one tonal extreme to another, creating a disjointed narrative and neutralizing any real emotional involvement on the part of the audience. Exacerbating the problem is the fact that the acting and filmmaking are so consistently good. Lester employs clever grace notes, such as tossed-off dialogue by peripheral characters and fussy background action, in order to generate a palpable sense of place and texture. He also works in his trademark sight gags, usually at the expense of pudgy character actor Jack Weston, who plays a crass American developer trying to score a big deal before Cuba implodes.

          Supporting player Hector Elizondo is terrific in a more serious role, as Dapes’ military handler; Elizondo’s knowing glances and sly asides communicate volumes of worldly cynicism. Denholm Elliot, Lonette McKee, and Chris Sarandon are equally effective in less nuanced roles. As for the leads, Adams looks spectacular throughout the picture, even if her character is written in such a confusing way that Adams is precluded from portraying consistent behavior. Connery pours on the manly-man charm, and he’s actually quite effective in his scenes with Adams, displaying more sensitivity than he usually integrates into his performances, but the story weirdly sidelines his character until the climax.

          Still, even with these catastrophic flaws, Cuba has indisputable virtues. The location photography by David Watkin is vivid, and the script by frequent Lester collaborator Charles Wood is witty. One typically tart dialogue exchange occurs between Weston and a prostitute. Weston: “Don’t you Cubans know that time is money?” Prostitute: “I do.”

Cuba: FUNKY

The Brotherhood of Satan (1971)

The overripe genre of Satan-worship flicks and the florid persona of character actor Strother Martin should be a winning combination, but, alas, the tiresome evidence presented in The Brotherhood of Satan suggests otherwise. Martin, who perfected a certain type of oily Southern villainy in pictures like Cool Hand Luke (1967), only played leading roles in two pictures, both of which were misbegotten horror projects. In the snake-themed Sssssss (1973), Martin effectively broadened his range by playing a tweaked scientist, but here, he’s heinously miscast as the sort of aristocratic evildoer generally played by darkly European types like Christopher Lee. In the story, Don Duncan (Martin) is a modern-day warlock leading a coven of elderly devil-worshippers who want to slip their souls into the bodies of the children they’ve been kidnapping; after a local sheriff (L.Q. Jones) uncovers the creepy plot, he confronts the bad guys in an overwrought finale. Hampered by a disjointed script and a very low budget, The Brotherhood of Satan meanders through one dull and/or nonsensical scene after another, never building any real momentum. Despite the colorful premise, the picture isn’t exciting or scary, nor is it enough of a cinematic trainwreck to induce much unintentional laughter. It’s just boring, even during the climax of Martin spewing a ridiculous speech filled with “thees” and “thous” while dressed in a campy high-priest costume. Martin’s commitment to the role can’t be denied, however; for no discernible reason, the denouement includes a fleeting shot of Martin proudly opening his robe to reveal that he’s, well, disrobed.

The Brotherhood of Satan: SQUARE

California Split (1974)

          While gambling movies in the ’50s or ’60s often focused on extraordinarily gifted characters like the Cincinnati Kid and “Fast” Eddie Felson, the 1974 gambling movie California Split takes a different tack by depicting a pair of pathetic losers who luck into a hot streak even though viewers know they’ll probably blow all of their winnings in short order. Directed by Robert Altman at his most restrained—for once, he doesn’t get lost in a maze of trifling subplots—the picture tracks the eventful friendship of Bill Denny (George Segal) and Charlie Walters (Elliot Gould).

          Bill is a magazine writer who regularly skips out on his job in order to bet at the track or in a gambling parlor, and Charlie makes his meager living hustling people like jocks at the local basketball court and rubes at a neighborhood poker joint. Bill has big problems, because he’s deep in debt to a bookie, and he’s an addict obsessed with the high of winning. Charlie’s more easygoing, a good-time guy who lives with two women. As the story unfolds, Bill and Charlie become drinking buddies and then gambling partners, because Bill decides to enter a gambling contest with a big prize but he needs money from Charlie for his opening stake.

          Although most gambling pictures explore the dramatic question of whether the heroes will win or lose, Altman is more interested in observing the behavior of these amiable but troubled souls. Working from the only script that journeyman actor Joseph Walsh ever wrote, Altman occasionally indulges his affection for weirdness (watch for a pointless scene involving a cross-dresser), but he mostly stays on point with incisive scenes showing the growth, corruption, and demise of an opportunistic friendship.

          Gould and Segal mesh well, joking and scatting through Altman’s naturalistic frames so comfortably that the whole movie feels unscripted, even though the story has inexorable momentum. Gould pulls off a deft trick by showing that Charlie is simultaneously irresistible and intolerable, a self-serving schmuck with innate charm, and Segal deftly illustrates that Bill is a desperate soul who only comes alive when he’s indulging his wild side. The strongest aspect of California Split is its unusual tone, because the film comfortably drifts between insightful drama (notably the terrific final scene) and sharp comedy (like the bit in which Gould negotiates with a stick-up man). Loaded with insight and wit, California Split is easily one of Altman’s most underrated pictures.

California Split: GROOVY

The Projectionist (1971)

Well-meaning but clumsily made, writer-director Harry Hurwitz’ homage to the movies concerns a New York City movie-theater projectionist whose fantasy life runs amok as he imagines himself into various scenarios inspired by the movies he shows. The premise is straightforward, and Hurwitz clearly delineates the different elements (“real” scenes are in color, fantasies are in black-and-white), but the picture’s jumbled tone and pointless narrative add up to tedium. The “real” scenes are the most effective, with Hurwitz’ grainy low-budget photography lending seedy realism to vignettes inside a projection booth and a theater lobby, as well as scenes of the projectionist (Chuck McCann) strolling around bad old Times Square or relaxing in his tiny hovel of an apartment. In fact, the movie is probably too effective at conveying the dismal nature of the projectionist’s life: The character always seems one bad experience away from going postal, especially when he’s getting yelled at by his skinflint boss (Rodney Dangerfield). The second layer of the picture, comprising original fantasy footage shot by Hurwitz, is the least effective. The overweight McCann dons a silly superhero suit to portray “Captain Flash” in broadly comic bits inspired by serials and silent movies. These scenes go on forever, and McCann’s mugging feels desperate. Even more problematic are gimmicky scenes cutting new shots of McCann into clips from Casablanca (1942) and other Hollywood classics—a device executed with much more flair a decade later in the Steve Martin comedy Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid (1982). The Projectionist has some fans in the cinephile crowd, who appreciate the picture’s film-geek nostalgia and handmade quality, but for most viewers, Hurwitz’ sole feature will simply seem amateurish and dull.

The Projectionist: LAME

The Hunting Party (1971)

          One of the most vicious movies I’ve ever seen—which is saying a lot, believe me—this grisly British flick opens by introducing Brandt Ruger (Gene Hackman), a wealthy rancher who gets off on beating his wife, Melissa (Candice Bergen), during sex. When this charmer and his sleazy buddies take off on a luxurious hunting trip, Melissa wanders over to a small schoolhouse to keep herself occupied. Along comes rough-ridin' outlaw Frank Calder (British madman Oliver Reed) and his gang, who kidnap Melissa and head off toward the frontier. Frank keeps his cronies from raping Melissa because he wants her to teach him to read. Meanwhile, Brandt hears what happened and enlists his hunting buddies to help track down the scoundrels. Thing is, Brandt figures Melissa's been tarnished, so he decides to take her out with one of the fancy rifles he uses to bag prey from a safe distance. As Hackman’s character devolves from meanie to monster, Frank evolves from scummy to sensitive. Sort of. Because, see, he wins Melissa's heart by raping her, which she secretly enjoys because it's the first time she’s ever been with a real man.

          But wait—there’s more! The movie was shot in Spain, which allows the picture to inexplicably shift from palm-tree-dotted plains to high desert, and in true spaghetti-Western style, The Hunting Party features a faux-Morricone score that’s beyond overbearing. During this bizarre picture’s goofiest sequence, Frank taunts a starving Bergen by eating peaches obscenely in front of her, all to the strains of cringe-worthy "comical" music. Plus, as was the cinematic fashion of the time, Brandt turns totally psychotic about halfway through the picture, leading to endless slow-mo bloodbaths. The Hunting Party is unconscionably mean-spirited, but it’s not boring. Quite to the contrary, it’s arresting in a nauseating sort of way, offering prime evidence of Hackman’s disturbing ability to incarnate unstable sons of bitches, and equally telling images of Reed portraying animalistic charisma. So if sadism is your bag, then The Hunting Party is your movie.

The Hunting Party: LAME

Coffy (1973)

          Pam Grier’s status as the queen of blaxploitation movies was secured by her appearance in Coffy—even though she doesn’t give a particularly good performance, she creates an indelible image. Tall, gorgeous, outrageously built, and believably ferocious, she’s a cartoonish vision of empowered womanhood, a superheroine sister with a shotgun mowin’ down every rotten mother*#@%er who does her wrong.

          Just as Grier’s performance is a triumph of attitude over skill, Coffy is more about vibe than cinematic virtues. Writer-director Jack Hill’s narrative is as simplistic as a pulpy comic-book story, portraying Grier as an indomitable avenger cutting a swath through the criminal underworld in order to exact revenge against the system that caused her younger sister to become a brain-damaged addict. Feeling like she’s unable to affect real social change in her day job as a nurse, Coffy (Grier) moonlights as an adventurer, using her wiles to penetrate criminal organizations.

          Coffy soon sets her sights on King George (Robert DoQui), a flamboyant pimp who also deals the nastiest junk in town. So, naturally, Coffy goes undercover as one of King George’s working girls, allowing Hill to put Grier into a series of barely-there outfits, and giving the director an excuse for epic catfights involving screeching hookers who are threatened by the buxom new arrival. Meanwhile, top-level criminal operator Arturo Vitroni (Allan Arbus) takes an interest in Coffy, at least until his underlings realize she might not be what she seems.

          And so it goes through a series of standard detective-story beats: Coffy digs for evidence, schemes her way out of trouble when she’s trapped, and ultimately confronts the baddest bad guy in the climax. It all goes down smoothly, after a fashion, since Hill’s filmmaking is crudely entertaining and since the director doesn’t skimp on exploitation elements. Coffy overflows with boobs, gore, vulgarity, wah-wah funk music, and horrific ’70s fashions. (DoQui’s pimp outfits are particularly heinous.)

          The movie has lots of lunkheaded exuberance, especially when Sid Haig shows up as Vitroni’s most sadistic lieutenant. Bearded, chrome-domed, and nearly always wearing a sick smile, Haig is Grier’s opposite number, an image of animalistic fury driven by base impulses instead of righteous ones. He’s also weirdly funny, and undoubtedly a big part of why Coffy has enjoyed decades of devotion from its cult of fervent fans.

          Brisk and brutal, Coffy is only incidentally a feminist statement, since it’s really just unapologetic trash—the picture is so shameless in its pursuit of cheap thrills that it has a kind of gutter-level integrity. That it also happens to feature a powerful female protagonist who retains her femininity and sensitivity amid horrific circumstances is an added bonus.

Coffy: FUNKY

Breezy (1973)

          Clint Eastwood’s choice to direct this soft-spoken romantic drama was one of the first clues that he wanted his career to include more than just action pictures. Instead of the usual Eastwood tropes of cops and cowboys, the movie depicts May-December sparks between a teenaged hippy, Breezy (Kay Lenz), and her much-older Establishment paramour, Frank (William Holden). For viewers who can look beyond the skeeviness of a sexual relationship between a 19-year-old and a man three decades her senior, Breezy is pleasantly entertaining if a bit overlong and schematic. While Frank’s embarrassment at being perceived as a cradle-robber is one of several predictable plot complications, the intelligent script by Jo Heims tries to define the main characters as individuals instead of mere archetypes.

          Adding some much-needed edge, both characters acknowledge ulterior motives in the early days of the relationship, because Breezy needs a meal ticket and Frank’s excited by the prospect of a nubile partner. As her name suggests, Breezy is a breath of fresh air when she drifts into Frank’s life, because she’s as hopeful as he is cynical. Therefore it’s believable that their relationship falters whenever they venture into public—he lives by society’s rules, and she doesn’t acknowledge the existence of any rules at all. Holden, smartly cast because he was an aging matinee idol who could still believably appeal to a younger woman, delivers a characteristically professional performance; he hits all the right notes, but not with any extraordinary flair. Lenz is appealing, though she struggles with making her moon-eyed character seem like more than just a male fantasy, and there’s some irony in the fact that Lenz later found her groove portraying cynics.

          Employing long takes, gentle dissolves, and a few tastefully lyrical montage sequences, Eastwood shows his versatility by delivering the exact opposite of the stoic cinematic violence for which he was known at the time, so Breezy is most interesting as a transitional chapter in his titanic directing career: It’s the first movie that Eastwood directed without also appearing as an actor, notwithstanding a wordless blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameo. Yet Breezy also merits examination as an awkward attempt to grapple with the early-’70s generation gap. Though the picture cops out in the end, it captures some things quite well, like the portrayal of Frank’s buddy Bob (Roger C. Carmel), whose midlife-crisis lust for young flesh speaks to a deeper bewilderment about what happens when the promise of youth fades into painful abstraction.

Breezy: FUNKY

Lady Ice (1973)

Calling Lady Ice a routine heist movie is an insult to routine heist movies, because this lifeless flick has all of the trappings of the genre but none of the appeal. Donald Sutherland plays an insurance-company investigator who romances a rich young woman (Jennifer O’Neill) in order to prove she’s a fence for stolen jewels. Sutherland seems game for playing a suave secret agent, flirting his way through a charming performance as a cocksure operator who may or may not be out of his depth, but the vapid script generates neither excitement nor suspense, so Sutherland ends up treading water. However O’Neill, the wholesomely beautiful ex-model who made such a memorable impression in Summer of ’42 (1971), is amateurish. Though she’s enchanting when she smiles with her impossibly white teeth contrasting her deeply tanned skin, she’s boring when she speaks because of her inability to invest dialogue with emotion or reality. Had the film given her anything interesting to do, the shortcomings of her performance might not have been as obvious, but then again, there’s a reason why less than ten years after Summer of ’42, O’Neill had slid so far down the Hollywood ladder that she spent 1979 costarring with the likes of Lee Majors and Chuck Norris. The great Robert Duvall shows up in Lady Ice as well, though just barely, in a small and underwritten role as a cop trailing Sutherland’s character, and the film’s other appeal is extensive location photography showcasing the sights of Miami and Nassau. But thanks to paper-thin characters, a rudimentary storyline, and long stretches in which nothing much happens, Lady Ice isn’t worth examining for hidden virtues.

Lady Ice: LAME

Five Easy Pieces (1970)

          Almost everything that made the New Hollywood moment important is captured in Five Easy Pieces, which exudes rebellious attitude through everything from its esoteric themes to its intimate filmmaking style. Grounded by director/co-writer Bob Rafelson’s incisive understanding of the ennui that drove the late ’60s/early ’70s counterculture, and elevated by Jack Nicholson’s complex leading performance, the picture is a vivid snapshot of personal crisis. Seething with ambition, Nicholson attacks his first major leading role, exploding in famous moments like his confrontation with an uncooperative waitress, but he’s actually best during quiet moments, communicating the angst broiling inside his character.

          At first glance, Robert Dupea (Nicholson) seems like every other blue-collar guy on the job at an oil field, because he lives with a simple-minded waitress, Rayette (Karen Black), and spends his nights bowling with pals including a redneck co-worker (Billy “Green” Bush). Yet Robert is actually a highly educated blueblood slumming among the working class as a way of hiding from his past, so when a looming tragedy draws Robert back into the fold of his uptight family, we discover the reason he feels so tortured: Robert doesn’t belong where he is, doesn’t belong where he was, and just plain doesn’t belong.

          Whereas many ’60s counterculture flicks showcased characters rebelling against tradition by trying to form new lifestyles, Five Easy Pieces explores the painful predicament of someone so ill at ease in his own skin that he might end up searching forever without finding the right situation. Robert Dupea, therefore, joins Benjamin Braddock (Dustin Hoffman’s character in 1967’s The Graduate) as one of the quintessential characters of the era, in that he represents a swath of progressive-minded youths who are unable to tolerate what they perceive as the artifice of their parents’ generation but too sophisticated to cohabitate with working stiffs.

          This profound theme of alienation manifests in several powerful images, like the moment when Robert steps out of his car during a traffic jam, climbs onto a moving truck to play the piano stacked among the furniture, and keeps on playing as the truck zooms down an off-ramp, leaving Robert’s car behind. Nicholson locks into this aspect of Robert’s character perfectly, sketching an individual who longs for moments of connection—through music, sex, or anything.

          The picture doesn’t downplay the inherent narcissism of the character, because Robert is consistently abusive to everyone he encounters. He’s especially cruel to Rayette, a dumb sexpot forever spinning her Tammy Wynette records. Robert is ashamed that he’s dating someone beneath his intellectual station, so she becomes the psychological punching bag for his self-loathing. All of this is heady stuff, and if Five Easy Pieces never really advances from one place to the next—it’s a character study, not a narrative per se—then that’s the point.

          Rafelson’s storytelling was never this focused again, screenwriter Carole Eastman (writing as Adrian Joyce) failed to recapture the quality of Five Easy Pieces in subsequent work, and Nicholson would spend the next couple of decades overacting before finding his way back to subtlety. Accordingly, Five Easy Pieces is more than just a significant cultural artifact. It’s a document of a nearly perfect collaboration between director, actor, and writer, all tackling the right subject matter at the right moment.

Five Easy Pieces: RIGHT ON

The Last Rebel (1971)

          Cocky New York Jets quarterback “Broadway” Joe Namath was virtually assured a screen career thanks to his photogenic looks and widespread popularity. Like many other athletes-turned-actors, however, Namath wasn’t able to complement his charm with dramatic skill. He got by on bravado when he played a trash-talking biker in the colorful action flick C.C. and Company (1970), but wasn’t able to pull off the same trick in the misguided Western The Last Rebel. Lazily utilizing his offscreen persona to play a runaway Confederate soldier, he seems not only anachronistic but also way too upbeat given his character’s grim circumstances. (One gets the sense that being the real Joe Namath around this time was a nonstop party, which might explain his disinterest in acting like anyone other than Joe Namath.) It doesn’t help that the film’s story is thin and trite, or that the characterizations don’t make much sense.

          Confederate soldiers Matt (Jack Elam) and Hollis (Namath) escape from Union pursuers and free a black man, Duncan (Woody Strode), from a lynching. The three then form a criminal gang. Huh? Aren’t they all trying to avoid attention because they’re fugitives? The exploits of these roving dudes mostly comprise getting card sharp Hollis to a gaming table, whereupon Hollis wins a small fortune and refuses to divide the winnings to Matt’s satisfaction. This triggers a blood feud between the two men. Again, huh? As to why any of these things happen, your guess is as good as mine.

          The Last Rebel proceeds in a linear fashion, so it’s not a complete logistical quagmire, but so many events go unexplained that the movie starts to take on a surreal quality, with unmotivated actions piling atop one another. At its weirdest, the picture includes a seduction scene that rips off the famous dinner sequence in Tom Jones (1963), but in lieu of that film’s flirtatious editing, The Last Rebel simply intercuts shots of a smirking Namath with close-ups of two women molesting their food lasciviously. Compounding the peculiarity of the whole enterprise is the fact that it was shot in Italy (with no attempt to make the locations look American), and the fact that the horn-driven rock score was cut by members of the venerable band Deep Purple. Period authenticity was not a priority.

The Last Rebel: LAME

Running (1979)

          Yet another product of the post-Rocky boom in feel-good sports flicks, this by-the-numbers character piece follows the travails of Michael Andropolis (Michael Douglas), a loser in his early 30s who’s determined to compete in the Olympic marathon. Writer-director Steven Hilliard Stern doesn’t come close to getting viewers in Andropolis’ corner, because the backstory Stern offers for his protagonist is contrived, irritating, and unconvincing: The character quit law school and med school, derailed his marriage to long-suffering Janet (Susan Anspach), and acts out childishly whenever anyone tries to impose authority on him. The character is supposed to be an I-gotta-be-me ’70s iconoclast, but he comes across as nothing more than a spoiled brat. Particularly egregious is a silly scene in which Andropolis berates a clerk at an unemployment office for having the temerity to take her coffee break, as if Andropolis is entitled to righteous indignation after losing a job he treated contemptuously.

          The distance-running stuff in the movie is better than the character material, but not by much; Stern’s idea of a training montage is a string of scenic shots depicting Douglas jogging through city streets while a supposedly uplifting musical theme drones on the soundtrack. Yet even with all of these flaws, Running isn’t awful. Quite frankly, it isn’t enough of anything to warrant a strong reaction one way or the other. Attractive location photography by Laszlo George helps make the film palatable, as do sequences filmed in the Montreal Olympics Stadium that was constructed for the 1976 summer games.

          The main appeal, however, is Douglas, who was just coming into his own as a movie star in the late ’70s. He’s in every scene, and it’s interesting to watch him working out the mechanics of how to command the screen with his signature swagger. He doesn’t get much help from Anspach, a sincere and sunny performer whose unremarkable feature career peaked in the ’70s. Making stronger contributions are reliable character player Chuck Shamata, who does a fine job as an opportunistic car salesman angling to cash in on Andropolis’ moment, and Lawrence Dane, who gives a charged performance as Andropolis’ embittered coach. Running is also noteworthy(ish) for featuring several interesting folks in early small roles, namely comedians Eugene Levy and Robin Duke and dramatic actors Gordon Clapp and Giancarlo Esposito. All in all, Running is pleasant to watch—and then immediately forgettable.

Running: FUNKY

The Wind and the Lion (1975)

          After making a name for himself by writing a number of imaginative films and then proving his directorial skills with the gangster flick Dillinger (1973), manly-man auteur John Milius swung for the fences with The Wind and the Lion, a grandiose adventure story in the David Lean tradition. Despite containing many powerful big-canvas visuals and exploring the collision between global tensions and personal agendas, the movie is undercut by, of all things, a sloppy script. Milius has always excelled at creating audacious scenes and memorable characters, but left unchecked, his stories get so ambitious that they lose focus. That’s certainly the case in The Wind and the Lion, which uses as its very loose inspiration a mostly forgotten historical incident.

          In 1904 Morocco, outlaw Mulai Ahmed er Raisuli (Sean Connery) kidnaps American Eden Perdicaris (Candice Bergen) and her two children. Although ostensibly seeking ransom for his hostages, the sly Raisuli actually wants to trigger an international crisis in order to topple Morroco’s government, which is controlled by various European factions. Meanwhile, U.S. President Teddy Roosevelt (Brian Keith) is campaigning for re-election, so he sends troops to rescue Eden, even though Roosevelt’s Secretary of State (John Huston) argues against getting involved. As if that wasn’t enough material, the picture also depicts the dangerous dithering of Morroco’s head of state (Marc Zuber); the pragmatic negotiations of an American diplomat (Geoffrey Lewis); and the valiant soldiering of a U.S. Marine captain (Steve Kanaly). To say that the story gets muddled is an understatement.

          Nearly every individual scene in The Wind and the Lion is of some interest, but taken together, they feel like disconnected episodes. The stuff with Roosevelt and his operatives is comical because Milius portrays Roosevelt as a blowhard more preoccupied with his hobbies than his job. The military material with Kanaly’s character is a rousing throwback to the stylized action films of the Douglas Fairbanks era. And the main story is a mess: Connery is absurdly miscast as a North African, and Bergen barely has any role to play. As such, their scenes ring false, especially when viewers are expected to believe they’ve bonded. So as either an international romance or an ambitious study of complex geopolitical issues, The Wind and the Lion is more windy than lionhearted.

          But as a beautifully filmed action movie, however, it’s quite effective. The scenes of Raisuli and his minions fighting on horseback are thrilling, particularly the mid-movie showstopper during which Raisuli single-handedly rescues Eden from a gang of thugs. The movie’s finale is even more spectacular, with two different battles taking place simultaneously as scimitars flail against Gatling guns. Moreover, even the dodgiest sections of this movie have considerable appeal: Bergen looks fantastic, Connery is regal, Kanaly is contagiously exuberant, and Keith is thoroughly amusing. One wishes these elements hung together more effectively, but there’s a lot to enjoy in The Wind and the Lion nonetheless.

The Wind and the Lion: FUNKY

Joe Kidd (1972)

          Possibly Clint Eastwood’s least interesting Western, this threadbare action flick has an impressive pedigree—celebrated novelist Elmore Leonard wrote the screenplay, and macho-cinema veteran John Sturges, of The Magnificent Seven fame, directed. Despite the participation of these boldfaced names plus that of Robert Duvall, who plays the heavy, Joe Kidd tells a forgettable story unimaginatively, so it’s only watchable because of production values, star power, Lalo Schifrin’s assertive score, and Bruce Surtees’s robust cinematography. Also working in the movie’s favor is brevity, since Joe Kidd runs just 88 minutes. After a lugubrious first act, the story gets going when rapacious developer Frank Harlan (Duvall) hires former bounty hunter Joe Kidd (Eastwood) to track Mexican revolutionary Luis Chama (John Saxon), whose rabble-rousing has interfered with Harlan’s schemes. Beyond some minor drama involving Joe’s shifting allegiances, there’s not much more to the plot, so lots of screen time gets consumed by macho posturing and lengthy sequences of characters stalking each other. A probing exploration of frontier morality this is not. One can find glimmers of Leonard’s signature pulpy style in Kidd’s bitchy dialogue, but while the best Leonard-derived Westerns have rock-solid conceits (see both versions of 3:10 to Yuma), the storyline of Joe Kidd is leisurely and unfocused, with characterizations—usually a Leonard strength—given depressingly short shrift.

          The movie looks good enough with Surtees behind the lens, though it seems he was asked to light sets more brightly than he usually does and he’s hampered by Sturges’s stodgy compositions. As for the actors, Eastwood conjures a few mildly amusing tough-guy moments, for instance when his character casually sips beer while watching a shootout. Duvall does what he can with a role so trite and underwritten it would stifle any actor, though his trope of mispronuncing the name of Saxon’s character conveys an appropriate level of arrogance. The wildly miscast Saxon snarls lines through a silly Spanish accent, and he also fails to demonstrate the charisma one might expect from a grassroots leader—one imagines that Leonard envisioned a more nuanced portrayal. Adding minor colors to the movie’s canvas are Paul Koslo, Don Stroud, and James Wainwright, who play nasty hired guns. Anyway, while some of the shootouts in Joe Kidd are moderately entertaining, the fact that such incidental details as the use of unusual firearms and an appearance by Dick Van Patten as a hotel clerk stick in the memory more than the main narrative underscore why the watchword here is unremarkable.

Joe Kidd: FUNKY

Network (1976)

          There’s a reason why sophisticated contemporary screenwriters from Billy Ray to Aaron Sorkin bow at the feet of playwright-screenwriter Paddy Chayefsky, and the script that best exemplifies that reason is Network, Chayefsky’s audacious satire about a TV personality who becomes a pop-culture phenomenon by going insane while America watches. By the mid-’70s, Chayefsky was a veteran dramatist with credits dating back to the ’50s heyday of live TV, and his reputation was such that his words reached the screen more or less untouched. For Network, Chayefsky let loose with all of his literary powers, constructing an outrageous plot, symbolic characters, and wordplay so dense and dexterous that each monologue is like a high-wire act.

          Network is filled with such esoteric verbiage as “multivariate” and “sedentarian,” and the ideas the script presents are as elevated as the language. In the story, network-news anchorman Howard Beale (Peter Finch) gets sacked for low ratings, then responds by announcing on air that he plans to commit suicide. His stunt triggers a ratings spike, but concerns his deeply principled boss and best friend, news-division chief Max Schumacher (William Holden). An ambitious executive from the network’s entertainment division, Diana Christensen (Faye Dunaway), sees an opportunity to exploit Beale’s breakdown. Backed by Frank Hackett (Robert Duvall), the omnivorous lieutenant of the corporation that just bought the network, Diana seizes control of the nightly news broadcast and turns it into a circus act featuring crazies like Howard and “Sybil the Soothsayer.”

          Concurrently, Diana makes a deal with a terrorist organization to film its insurrectionist crimes, so before long the network’s top two shows are the vulgar “news” show and the brazen “Mao Tse Tung Hour.” Firmly situated as the story’s drowned-out voice of reason, Max is briefly seduced by the lure of slick sensationalism—he ends up in Diana’s bed even though he’s married—but once he comes to his senses, all he can do is bear witness as primetime becomes a madhouse.

          Director Sidney Lumet, unobtrusively serving Chayefsky’s script, tells the story with methodical precision, orchestrating a handful of astonishing performances. Finch gets the showiest role, ranting through moments like the famous “I’m as mad as hell, and I’m not going to take this anymore!” speech; the actor died just before receiving an Oscar for the role. Holden, his once-gleaming features ravaged by years of drinking, is a vivid personification of an idealist-turned-cynic, and his runs through long speeches are as graceful as they are muscular. Dunaway, burdened with the most overtly symbolic characterization in the piece, is so chillingly soulless that she makes the contrivances of her role seem necessary and urgent. Duvall, adding an almost Biblical degree of rage to his previously muted screen persona, is layered and terrifying. And Ned Beatty, who pops in for a cameo as Duvall’s boss, blows away any memories of his usual bumbling characters by portraying a sociopathic corporate overlord.

          Network is filled with nervy scenes, like the vignette of network executives negotiating a contract with gun-toting terrorists, and the climax is thunderous. And although it comes awfully close, Network isn’t perfect; some scenes, like Max’s confrontation with his wronged wife (Beatrice Straight), are overwritten to mask their triteness, and Max’s final monologue to Diana summarizes the picture in a manner that’s contrived, obvious, and unnecessary. But even in that scene, arguably the most film’s laborious, Chayefsky’s language is intoxicating: In the course of excoriating the reductive nature of television, Max laments that “all of life is reduced to the common rubble of banality.” Especially since most of Chayefsky’s bleak predictions about television have come true since Network was released, this profound film has lost none of its elemental power.

Network: OUTTA SIGHT

Skyjacked (1972)

          Perhaps it’s a sign that I’ve spent too many years exploring the dark recesses of ’70s cinema, but the only way I can classify Skyjacked is to label it the second-best ’70s movie about Charlton Heston rescuing an out-of-control airplane. For while Skyjacked has a few entertainingly campy scenes, the picture can’t hold a kitschy candle to the wonderfully awful Airport 1975. The fact that I can draw such distinctions should indicate how high my tolerance is for so-bad-it’s-good ’70s trash, and it should also tell you to avoid Skyjacked at all costs if your tolerance is lower than mine.

          As the title suggests, this flick is a numbingly simplistic thriller about a nutty Vietnam vet hijacking a passenger plane in a storyline that brainlessly follows the standard disaster-movie playbook. Square-jawed Heston stars as manly-man pilot Captain Henry “Hank” O’Hara, who has to protect his passengers from the heavily armed shenanigans of tweaked ex-soldier Jerome Weber (James Brolin). The hijacker’s motivation has something to do with wanting to defect to Russia, but it’s not as if one expects this movie to go deep into characterization. A typically random assortment of actors gets caught in the crossfire, including Claude Akins, Susan Dey, Roosevelt “Rosey” Grier, Mariette Hartley, Yvette Mimieux, Walter Pidgeon, and Leslie Uggams, none of whom should consider this a high point in their screen careers.

          Despite the presence of capable pulp director John Guillermin behind the camera, Skyjacked is so generic that it’s almost undistinguishable from several other made-for-TV and theatrical features about the same subject matter—in fact, it’s especially easy to get Skyjacked mixed up with the carbon-copy telefilm Mayday at 40,000 Feet (1976), featuring David Janssen’s clenched teeth in place of Heston’s rigidly hinged pearly whites. The problem is that instead of going overboard with ludicrous characters and situations, Skyjacked is quite dull for most of its running time. The movie doesn’t come alive until the silly climax, when Brolin and Heston physically fight for control of the plane; Brolin is so screamingly awful, and Heston so outrageously overwrought, that the movie briefly enters bad-movie bliss. But even with that fleeting moment of amusement, Skyjacked is merely a footnote to a subgenre that never produced much in the way of meritorious cinema.

Skyjacked: LAME

It’s Alive (1974) & It Lives Again (1978)

          Arguably the most enduring creation of B-movie auteur Larry Cohen’s colorful career, the It’s Alive franchise depicts the bloody rampages of killer mutant babies born with claws, teeth, and bad attitudes. Surprisingly, the first picture is as much of a melancholy tragedy as it is an out-and-out horror show. Frank Davis (John P. Ryan) is a successful Los Angeles PR man expecting a second child with his easygoing wife, Lenore (Sharon Farrell). Yet as he stands outside the delivery room waiting for news, Frank hears screams and then sees a doctor stagger out, bloodied and dying. Frank runs into the operating room and discovers an abattoir, because his “child” came out of the womb and killed the whole surgical staff before escaping. This outrageous scene sets the tone for the whole picture, and indeed the whole franchise, by turning a universal experience into a nightmare. The scene also initiates a disquieting odyssey during which Frank becomes a social pariah, Lenore loses her mind, and the escaped “infant” racks up a horrific body count.

          Cohen’s filmmaking style is unpretentious to a fault, with many sequences marred by dodgy cinematography, but he’s aided immeasurably by the participation of legendary composer Bernard Hermann (Psycho). Hermann layers the film with one darkly insinuating theme after another, creating uncomfortable levels of menace and suspense that accentuate Cohen’s scheme of juxtaposing normalcy and the supernatural. This effect is aided by Ryan’s tightly wound performance; the actor does a great job of conveying angst beneath a veneer of stoicism. So while Rick Baker’s creature FX are a bit on the goofy side, and while some viewers may quibble about the lack of any scientific explanation for the killer-baby phenomena, It’s Alive has an undeniable mood all its own.

          Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for the first sequel, It Lives Again. Once again written and directed by Cohen, the picture meanders through a contrived storyline that lacks the insistent momentum of the first picture. Ryan returns as Frank Davis, only this time he’s part of an underground group helping couples pregnant with killer mutant babies like the one Davis’ wife delivered. In trying to aid one particular young couple (Frederic Forrest and Kathleen Lloyd), Davis runs afoul of a government operative (John Marley) assigned to annihilate the killer mutant babies as they’re born. Intrigue and mayhem ensue, but the excitement level is never particularly high, and by the time two killer mutant babies escape for a rampage, the picture has settled into a dreary rut of people waiting around for haphazardly staged attacks.

          Cohen resurrected his infantile monsters one more time for the 1987 threequel It’s Alive III: Island of the Alive, and the original picture was remade in 2008.

It’s Alive: FUNKY

It Lives Again: LAME

The Neptune Factor (1972)

The ’70s generated plenty of “bad” movies that are fun to watch, and on first blush one might expect The Neptune Factor to fall into that category. A thriller about the crusade to rescue a group of people from an underwater research station surrounded by giant sea creatures, the picture should offer a kitschy sci-fi spin on The Poseidon Adventure. Not so. Instead of campy melodrama in the Irwin Allen mode, this interminable flick features bored actors reciting pointless dialogue on cheap sets, plus ridiculous “special effects” shots of real fish swimming around poorly photographed miniature models of submersibles. Were it not for the presence of recognizable actors, this would seem like an inept student film that somehow found its way into the mainstream marketplace. The plot, which makes the picture sound much more exciting than it actually is, involves an undersea lab getting dislodged from its normal position by an undersea earthquake. A high-tech submarine is dispatched to rescue (or recover) the scientists in the lab, resulting in a handful of close encounters with “giant” sea creatures living in the ocean’s lower depths. Painfully boring on its way to becoming absolutely forgettable, The Neptune Factor stars a quartet of actors not generally known for safeguarding their cinematic legacies: Ernest Borgnine, Ben Gazzara, Yvette Mimieux, and Walter Pidgeon. Suffice it to say that none surmounts the worthless material, although Borgnine tries to keep things watchable with his usual indiscriminate intensity. The other performers merely sleepwalk through the stupidity, although it’s amusing to watch Gazarra strut around with his signature smugness—what, exactly, is there to be smug about when you’re sharing the screen with the residents of a household aquarium?

The Neptune Factor: SQUARE

Colossus: The Forbin Project (1970)

          Offering an imaginative sci-fi companion to Fail Safe (1964)—the chilling “what if?” drama in which a technological glitch triggers nuclear conflict—this brisk but overly talky thriller imagines what might happen if America relinquished control of its nuclear arsenal to a supercomputer. Setting aside the kitsch factor of now-dated movie imagery featuring a computer so massive it occupies the entirety of a hollowed-out mountain, Colossus has, well, colossal logic problems. The movie assumes that none of the geniuses who built the computer anticipated its likely evolution; that nobody imagined what might happen if similar systems were built by other countries; and that the entire U.S. government okayed a system lacking an “off” switch. (The script provides an explanation for that last item, but the explanation is a dodgy storytelling workaround.) Even with its flaws, however, Colossus is a noteworthy entry in the continuum of stories about the dangers of runaway artificial intelligence, a topic that gains more importance with each passing year.

          In the opening scenes, Dr. Charles A. Forbin (Eric Braeden) celebrates the launch of Colossus, a supercomputer authorized by the U.S. government to automate decisions related to the country’s nukes. As explained by Forbin, the idea is that Colossus can cycle through countless potential scenarios in seconds and then take immediate action without the impediment of emotions. Soon after Colossus goes live, America learns the Soviets have a similar system called Guardian, and Colossus demands the ability to communicate directly with Guardian. Unwisely, the American and Russian governments okay the interface, which starts a chain of events that may or may not lead to Armageddon. Meanwhile, Forbin struggles to reclaim control over Colossus, even though he designed the system to resist human intervention. And that’s basically the totality of the narrative, excepting a quasi-romantic subplot involving scientist Dr. Cleo Markham (Susan Clark)—characterization is not a priority here.

          Scripted by deft James Bridges (later to make The China Syndrome) and helmed by reliable journeyman Joseph Sargent, Colossus zips along with respectable momentum, notwithstanding the occasional lull. It also boasts consistently intelligent dialogue and a handful of clever maneuvers—for example, the sly means by which Forbin slips information out of the Colossus facility without the pesky computer noticing. The movie also benefits from an exciting and suitably futuristic score by Michael Colombier. Yet the aforementioned logic problems are mightily distracting, and it’s easy to imagine another actor doing more with the leading role than Braeden does. He’s fine whenever scenes require mild derision or smooth charm, but too often his limited range of expression flattens moments that should have radiated tension. Luckily, he’s supported by a deep bench of proficient players, including Georg Sanford Brown, William Schallert, Dolph Sweet, and—in one of those tiny roles that contributes to the epic scope of his filmography—James Hong.

Colossus: The Forbin Project: FUNKY

Pulp (1972)

          After scoring critically and commercially with the vicious crime thriller Get Carter (1971), star Michael Caine and writer-director Mike Hodges reteamed for a more playful look at the crime genre with Pulp, a darkly comedic romp that pokes fun at hard-boiled detective fiction and old gangster movies. Unfortunately, tonal problems prevent the duo from achieving their goals as effectively as they did in their previous collaboration: Whereas Get Carter starts slowly and builds steam but always relentlessly pursues the goal of generating violent intensity, Pulp never finds its footing in terms of mood or pacing. Yet even though Pulp drags during many flatly informative sequences and suffers from a remoteness that makes it difficult to get emotionally involved with the characters, the picture boasts swaggering style and mordant wit.

          Caine stars as Mickey King, a English author of déclassé detective fiction living in Italy. He’s hired by a mysterious benefactor to travel to Malta, where he’s expected to ghostwrite his employer’s autobiography. Intrigue and murders that happen along the way to Malta show King that he’s in over his head, and his suspicions are confirmed when he meets his bizarre boss: faded movie star Preston Gilbert (Mickey Rooney), a onetime leading man in gangster flicks. Turns out Preston plans to use his memoir to reveal a scandalous secret involving several powerful muckety-mucks, which makes him a target and puts his ghostwriter, King, squarely in the crossfire.

          Especially when viewers discover Gilbert’s unpleasant secret, it’s difficult to find much humor in Pulp’s storyline, which is nearly as nihilistic as that of Get Carter. So the fact that Hodges and Caine play the piece like a comedy, right down to Caine’s trenchantly funny noir-style voiceover, creates a jarring dissonance. In fact, watching Pulp is rather like listening to a sadist roar with laughter while describing an atrocity: The storytellers clearly find this stuff terribly droll, but their laughter isn’t contagious.

          Still, the Malta locations have a vivid, sun-baked authenticity, Caine is his usual watchable self, and some of the dialogue exchanges and voiceover remarks are memorably tart. (“It was a ghost town,” Caine narrates at one point. “Two crossed coffins in the Michelin guide.”) Rooney, however, is insufferable, so amped-up and overbearing that he’s exhausting to watch, and among the supporting players, only gravel-voiced Lionel Stander is quasi-memorable as Preston’s hair-triggered manservant. As a result, Caine’s star power is the most consistently pleasurable element of this strange movie.

Pulp: FUNKY

Dracula (1979)

          Attractive but not subtle, this big-budget version of the deathless Bram Stoker novel boasts fabulous production values, a rousing score by John Williams, a sexy star turn by Frank Langella, and zesty direction by John Badham. These elements add up to a pulpy romantic thriller that borders on camp when Laurence Olivier shows up to give an overcooked performance as the vampire count’s nemesis, Abraham Van Helsing, so even though this Dracula is an enjoyable rendering of a classic story, it doesn’t exactly aspire to high art.

          Just as a successful Broadway show of Dracula starring Bela Lugosi led Universal Pictures to film the story in 1931, a hit revival of the play starring Langella prompted Universal to revisit the character after years in which England’s Hammer Films laid claim to the world-famous bloodsucker. Langella blends aristocratic carriage, mellifluous line readings, and seductive glares to make Dracula into a sort of supernatural swinger who causes women to fall at his feet; the characterization is broad nearly to the point of self-parody, but nonetheless entertaining.

          Given this strong take on the title character, it’s mildly disappointing that other story elements in this way-too-long flick didn’t receive equally imaginative treatment. Screenwriter W.D. Richter mucks about with the specifics of Stoker’s book in order to streamline the narrative and contrive a big action-movie climax, but he relies on overused shock tactics like comin’-at-ya corpses and the tendency of Dracula’s henchman, Renfield, to snack on cockroaches.

          Similarly, director Badham and his team create a beautiful look with elaborate sets and moody photography that’s almost completely drained of color (a clever metaphor given the subject matter), but visual devices like the giant bat sculpture decorating the foyer of Dracula’s castle are indicative of the film’s sledgehammer approach. A vaguely psychedelic sequence using smoke and lasers to illustrate the dream state following a vampire bite is the picture’s most successful venture into figurative imagery.

          Helping viewers overlook the stylistic hiccups is the fact that the picture doesn’t skimp on meat-and-potatoes vampire thrills. Furthermore, leading lady Kate Nelligan is lovely in a refreshingly grown-up sort of way, even if her character’s quasi-feminism ebbs and flows according to the dramatic needs of any particular scene, and eccentric character actor Donald Pleasence is a welcome presence as the asylum keeper who becomes Van Helsing’s partner in vampire hunting. So even with the dodgy storytelling—and, sad to say, Olivier’s awful hamming—this Dracula is a pleasant diversion, albeit one that comes close to wearing out its welcome as the lengthy running time grinds along.

Dracula: FUNKY

Avalanche (1978)

Once producer Irwin Allen became Hollywood’s master of disaster by cranking out spectacles like The Poseidon Adventure (1972), a slew of copycat titles seemed inevitable. Yet only a handful of disaster movies in the true Allen mode were made without his involvement, probably because the buy-in for ensemble casts of faded Hollywood stars and for extensive special effects daunted low-rent outfits. The inability to acquire proper production resources never daunted producer Roger Corman, however, so in 1978 the world was subjected to his nearly unwatchable production Avalanche, a pathetic attempt to mimic Allen’s style of meshing melodrama with mayhem. Suffice to say that the picture’s tacky mixture of bargain-basement FX and ski-resort stock footage doesn’t exactly create a persuasive illusion, and suffice to say that none of the actors involved distinguishes themselves. The big names slumming in this tedious flick are Mia Farrow and Rock Hudson, with B-movie stalwart Robert Forster and Hollywood veteran Jeanette Nolan along for the ride. Hudson plays, predictably enough, the irresponsible owner of a ski resort who rebuffs warnings that his facility is built on dangerous ground. Yes, it’s that sort of disaster movie, which doesn’t even pretend to be anything except a rote recitation of tropes from the Allen playbook. Offering nothing of interest in terms of action, character, drama, spectacle, or suspense, the movie isn’t even entertaining enough to satisfy ’70s disaster-movie completists, an undemanding population of which I am, for good or ill, a longtime representative. When a disaster movie makes Earthquake seem like a nuanced classic by comparison, you know it’s more of a disaster than a movie.

Avalanche: SQUARE

The Devil’s Rain (1975)

          Ernest Borgnine as a bug-eyed Satanist, complete with ram’s horns and a shaggy fright wig. Bit player John Travolta as a victim of supernatural forces, his eyes weeping blood and his face melting away. A shirtless William Shatner crucified, upside-down, in a church defiled by Satan worshippers. All this and more can be yours for the price of admission to The Devil’s Rain, a perpetual contender for the title of Worst Movie Ever Made, and therefore cinematic catnip for masochistic viewers. Directed by cult-fave Brit Robert Fuest, who cleverly blended camp and horror in The Abominable Dr. Phibes (1971) and therefore should have known better, The Devil’s Rain makes the fatal mistake of taking itself seriously. So even though Fuest’s innate artistry gives a few scenes visual grandiosity, The Devil’s Rain is dull and sluggish, and only the scenes of shameless scenery-chewer Shatner getting tortured achieve campy bliss.

          The big problems are the unnecessarily convoluted story and the lackluster production design. The backstory of the picture has something to do with a cult of Satanists who populate a ghost town in the American Southwest, performing human sacrifices in order to gain immortality or power or whatever; the current story depicts a family rebelling against the Satanists’ oppression, which leads Mark Preston (Shatner) to confront the bad guys. Not the smartest move. For reasons that strain credibility, Mark’s mom (Ida Lupino) owns a book that’s mystically connected to the Satanists’ power, so head villain Jonathan Corbis (Ernest Borgnine) tries to exchange Mark’s life for the book. However Mark’s brother, Tom (Tom Skerritt), will have none of this, so he storms into town with a shotgun hoping to rescue his sibling. Also drawn into the overcooked mix are a local doctor (Sam Richards) and a local sheriff (Kennan Wynn).

          One might assume that The Devil’s Rain zips along with this much plot crammed into 86 minutes, but that’s not the case. Instead, the movie lumbers slowly because the filmmakers favor lengthy setpieces like people melting to death in what appears to be real time. Furthermore, the picture’s ghost-town sets are cheap and sparse, the shocker moments are so clumsy and obvious that tension never builds, and stiff acting by nearly the entire cast gives every scene a leaden quality.

          Through normally an energetic asset to any picture, Borgnine is a weak link, because he’s miscast as an aristocratic character in the classical mold—he looks ridiculous spouting verbose curses in monster drag. Even solid actors Lupino and Skerritt are hamstrung by the goofy goings-on. Only Shatner gets into the spirit of the thing, dropping to his knees and flailing and shouting like he’s playing grand opera—or at least Grand Guignol. Accordingly, the fact that he’s only in the movie for a total of about twenty minutes is a shortcoming.

          Still, there’s no denying that The Devil’s Rain comprises 86 of the weirdest minutes in ’70s cinema, even though it’s more of a slow-moving unnatural disaster than a high-speed train wreck. And as for the poster's claim that the flick features “absolutely the most incredible ending of any motion picture ever”? Let’s just say you can’t blame the hypesters who sold The Devil’s Rain for trying.

The Devil’s Rain: FREAKY